


The Orphan Princess and the Merchant's Daughter

by RaspberryHeaven



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fairy Tale Elements, Female Friendship, Female Rivalry, Forgiveness, Gen, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8868037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaspberryHeaven/pseuds/RaspberryHeaven
Summary: The very first time the merchant’s daughter met the red-headed orphan girl, she suspected magic. Who but a magical creature would dare live with the friendly witch and the hermit on the other side of the Haunted Wood? The orphan was clearly an elven princess in disguise.
What she never suspected was that there was more than one disguised princess. Or that, not being a princess herself, there was another role for her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akanamay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akanamay/gifts).



The very first time the merchant’s daughter met the red-headed orphan girl, she suspected magic. Who but a magical creature would dare live with the friendly witch and the hermit on the other side of the Haunted Wood? Who else would have great eyes as grey as twilight and as shining as stars, except when they reflected the leaves of the forest? Who else would dance across the Violet Vale with the grace of fairy, regardless of her plain and poor clothes? Who else would crown herself with flowers, and spin tales of magic and tragedy and love?

The orphan was clearly an elven princess in disguise.

When the orphan girl swore bosom friendship, the merchant girl was a little embarrassed, but also aware that she was bringing magic into her own life. She took her oath seriously, and loved the orphan girl truly. When they were torn apart, it hurt her badly. Reuniting was just another miracle.

The merchant’s daughter didn’t mind being an ordinary girl. Not even when the orphan girl left her to go on adventures over the sea. The life of a merchant’s girl was a contented one, especially for a girl who was plump and pretty and lovable. The outside world was full of uncomfortable dangers and tears as well as excitement, and the village was a safer place to live. Besides, she held the friendship of an elven princess, so the magic was still there whenever she wanted it. 

And the village was there whenever the orphan girl needed to return from her adventures and enjoy friendship and home.

The merchant’s daughter fell in love with a farmer and married, and had children, and became pleasantly fat. The orphan girl still danced through her life, slender and magical as a fairy. The merchant’s daughter had a moment when jealousy prickled at her, when the orphan girl seemed about to marry a prince from a faraway land, but after all, she loved her husband, and the prince turned out to be false. The orphan girl instead married a woodcutter, who the merchant’s daughter had always suspected to be a prince in disguise, and moved just over the hill, to a House of Dreams built for an elven princess and her prince.

The merchant’s daughter was happy, and secure in the orphan girl’s love. It never even once occurred to her that the orphan girl was not the only disguised princess in the world.

Then one day, as she was crossing the hills to visit the orphan girl, the merchant’s daughter stumbled across a princess. She knew the girl was a princess by her long golden hair blowing in the wind, by the pure beauty of her face, by the grace of her movements even in her rags. There was a terrible suffering making her lovely face even more captivating, and the merchant’s daughter knew straight away that the princess was held prisoner by a terrible ogre. 

At first the merchant’s daughter was merely held in amazement at the princess’s beauty. But then the suffering on her face eased, and she turned to smile, and the merchant’s daughter saw that the captured princess was smiling with love on the orphan girl, and the orphan girl was smiling back.

That was when the very first seeds of darkness entered the merchant’s daughter’s heart.

Afterwards, the orphan girl took the merchant’s daughter to her House of Dreams, and told her the tragic tale of the captured princess, and the ogre who had been turned kindly and helpless by a spell but still held her captive. 

The merchant’s daughter sighed, and wiped away a tear, and said all the right things, and all the time she thought: I am a fat, ordinary housewife. What do rosy cheeks and pleasing plumpness have to measure up in interest against a golden-haired princess in desperate peril?

At least, she told herself, the princess was already married. There could be no prince to rescue her. Even if she stole the orphan girl’s heart, there could be no happy ending for her. And the merchant’s daughter was secretly glad, and the seeds swelled with her gladness and began to take root.

She visited the orphan girl often, but the orphan girl came less often to her own village, and there seemed a chasm opened between them. Every time the orphan girl mentioned the golden haired princess, the merchant’s daughter felt her heart close up and harden, and it was as if the orphan girl sensed it with her magic and withdrew herself, hurt. The distance increased and increased. The merchant’s daughter imagined the orphan girl fleeing gladly to the golden haired princess after their visits, in relief.

After all, only a princess could understand a princess.

After one visit, the merchant’s daughter undressed all her heavy layers of clothes, and looked at herself in a silver mirror. Her breasts hung heavy, her stomach itself hung more than it had, after children and good food. Her face was still pretty, but there was a double chin developing. She didn’t look like a princess.

But there was another role for a woman with hair as black as a raven’s wing and eyes as black as coal, a woman who could never be as graceful as a princess–but could be just as magical.

Horrified at herself, the merchant’s daughter dressed herself, and brushed her hair out until it shone, and went to play with her babies. She covered her body as she covered the tiny seedlings of evil in her heart with kindness and love.

Until one day, she crossed the hills to the orphan girl’s house, and on the way she discovered that the golden haired princess did indeed have a prince.

She watched their kiss, and her heart raged with fury and joy, because the princess was still married to the gentle ogre. The power flared up within her, the power to curse, and destroy. The witch turned, with bitter triumph, to carry her spell to the orphan girl, who would be utterly hers again. As for the golden haired princess, who cared? She could keep serving the ogre, or she could become a witch as well, for all the witch cared.

A dried leaf crunched beneath her foot. The golden haired princess heard it, and fled after the witch, pleading for mercy. But the pleasures of her new power welled up even higher at the sight of the tears in the princess’s eyes, and the witch laughed cruelly. Do not beg mercy of a witch, she said. You are wicked, and don’t deserve a crown.

She swept down to the House of Dreams, and her black hair escaped its bonds and streamed behind her like a banner of death.

The orphan girl did not notice that she was a witch, now. The witch wondered what spell blinded her to something that should be so very obvious. She clutched the spell to destroy the golden haired princess very close to herself, cherishing it, even as it hurt her.

At last the orphan girl turned to the merchant’s daughter and asked if she had seen the golden haired princess, as she was to come as well. 

The magic surged in the witch’s heart, and she opened her mouth–

–and perhaps it was the orphan girl’s own magic, but she saw eyes lined with suffering beyond their years, welling with tears. Saw her own babies and husband and her happy, contented life, that must seem like heaven to a girl wed to an ogre. She saw the sweet grey-green eyes of the orphan girl, and didn’t want to make them fill with tears.

The merchant’s daughter said she had seen no one on her way. On the way home, she plucked the powerful, evil seedlings form her heart, and tossed them over the cliff, into the sea.

At home, she looked at the lines around her own face, of laughter and love rather than grief, and her comfortable plumpness, and smiled at herself with love and forgiveness. Perhaps it was better to be a kindly fool than a witch, after all.

And perhaps women should always stick together, and not battle between princesses and witches.

Some years later, the orphan girl, as she and the merchant’s daughter watched their children play with those of the liberated princess, who had married her prince, reached out to take the merchant’s girl’s hand.

“I have many friends of the race that knows Joseph, Diana, but you are my one true bosom friend, and always will be.”

“I’m glad you have Leslie nearby,” Diana said, letting the warmth make her generous. “You need the company.”

Anne looked thoughtful. “I do love her dearly, but–we’ve always remained true to our vow of eternal friendship, haven’t we, dear?”

“Yes, my Anne darling. I have.”

Diana Wright, that very ordinary woman, was perfectly content.


End file.
